Corporate influence on science and science policy comes again under the microscope at the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) second annual conference on the topic. Scientists, academics, journalists, and policy advocates will convene in Washington on July 12 to debate corporations’ use of science to frustrate regulation, thwart research on health risks, and corrupt evidence-based medicine.

Sessions include panels on corporate and political manipulation of the federal scientific advisory process, the role of the media in reporting financial conflicts of interest among scientists, and corporate suppression of science.

Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner will deliver the keynote address, and Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), who has been a leading critic of the Bush Administration’s politicization of science, will address the conference at lunch. Other speakers will include former New England Journal of Medicine editor Arnold Relman, MD; Ralph Horwitz, MD, dean of the Case Western University School of Medicine; Jim J. Tozzi from the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness; fired EPA scientist David Lewis; and Eric Schaeffer, executive director of Environmental Integrity and former chief of enforcement, Environmental Protection Agency.

The conference, titled “Integrity in Science,” will take place on July 12, 2004, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the International Trade Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington. The full conference agenda, list of participants, and registration materials are available at https://www.cspinet.org/integrity/conflictedscience_conf.html or by calling 202-777-8307.